1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display system with multiple display modes of two-dimensional (2D) and stereoscopic or auto-stereoscopic (two dimensional/three dimensional, 2D/3D) display modes, and defines a structural method to automatically detect which display mode to activate, by image analysis and processing of the incoming graphical image or video to be displayed.
2. The Related Arts
Because there is a proper distance between people's two eyes, viewing angles of these two eyes toward an image and video is not the same. As a result, after retinal images of left and right eyes are merged through the brain, people will be able to observe a 3 dimensional representation of an image and video. The phenomenon is fulfilled based on the principle of binocular disparity.
A stereoscopic image is an image that consists of a pair or multiple images set, with each image slightly offset or minor deviating from each other. The set of images can be constructed in many different alignments such as side-by-side, over/under, vertically interlaced, horizontally interlaced, multiple tiled (2×2, 3×3). A stereoscopic video is a video that is made up of stereoscopic images.
To present 3D stereoscopic images or videos through a display system technology, the display system will take the stereo image pair or multiple image sets and present stereoscopic images by spatially separating the stereoscopic image presentation such that the left eye and right eye will see the different image pairs or multiple images composed in the stereoscopic image. An example of display system technologies are polarized stereoscopic glasses, lenticular 3D lenses, and parallax barrier 3D lenses.
With reference to FIG. 1, a structural diagram of a conventional display system with 2D and 3D display modes is shown. The system includes a display device 100 having an integrated chip (IC) 110 embedded in the display system that is capable of controlling its display mode, and a recording and displayback device 200 electrically connected to the display device 100 through an image/video data transmission interface 300 that includes, but not limited to LVDS, HDMI, and DVI. The recording and displayback device 200 includes a central processing unit 2100 and a graphics-processing unit 2200. There are processing units that combine the central processing unit and the graphics-processing unit in one package. The central processing unit 2100 is electrically connected to the graphics-processing unit 2200. The recording and displayback device 200 loads the stereoscopic content data 230. With past display systems, the viewer(s) of the display system must manually select the display mode of the display system to the 3D display mode when playing back stereoscopic images or videos (The user is required to switch the display mode by a controller 400 or a control interface) which generates a poor user experience.
The disadvantage of a display system with 2D and 3D display modes without the capability of auto-detecting the proper display mode is that user must manually switch the display system.
In view of this, the inventors, based on years of experience in manufacturing of display systems, carefully studied and designed under many improving experiments in view of the above-mentioned disadvantage, and finally acquired the present invention with advantages of convenient and practical use for a 2D and 3D capable display system.